Organizing Our Homeschool

This week's TOS Blog Cruise question is How do you organize your homeschool?  I absolutely love this question because I do enjoy planning and organizing, particularly in relation to our homeschool.  Now, this doesn't mean that I'm always perfectly organized, far from it, but I do make planning and organizing for our homeschool a priority.  While I used to think that if I could just get things really organized, then I wouldn't have to work on organizing continuously.  While there is some truth in that statement, organization is a never-ending battle, as life with children tends to move towards disorder, not order!

Planning for the Entire School Year
My BIG PLANNING sessions happen over the summer.  Over the summer, I plan out our entire school year in terms of when we're taking breaks, start and end dates, and overall structure.  I finalize curriculum choices for all of my children and work out a rough schedule of how each child will progress through their respective curriculums.  I've posted several times in the past about BIG PLANNING so I will direct you to some of those previous posts.

• Determining a Master Schedule for the Entire School Year
• Independent Reading, 6th Grade Curriculum
• Independent Reading, 4th Grade Curriculum
• Our Curriculum for the 2010-2011 School Year
• Study Aids for Biology

Planning Unit Studies
While I didn't plan my own unit studies for school this year, I planned our own unit studies for years.  I posted a series of articles about planning unit studies which might be helpful for those who are planning their own unit studies.

• Planning a Unit Study Step-by-Step:  Breaking the Main Topics into Sub-Topics and Choosing Areas of Study
• Planning a Unit Study Step-by-Step:  Utilitizing Free Resources
• Planning a Unit Study Step-by-Step:  Starting with Resources that You Own
• Planning a Unit Study Step-by-Step:  Background Information

Organizing Our School Room
While organizing our school room is a never-ending task, over the summer I try to do some bigger organizational projects which will help our school days run more smoothly.  I've posted several times in the past about organizing our school room so I will direct you to some of those previous posts.

• Organizing Colored Pencils by Shade and a Sharpening Center
• A Well-Stocked School Supplies Cabinet
• Our School Room
• Getting the School Room Ready for the New School Year

Organizing Each School Day
To organize each school day I have two powerful tools that help tremendously in keeping our school days running smoothly - workboxes for my boys (4th and 6th grades) and an assignment folder for my daughter (8th grade).  We are in our second year of using a modified version of the workbox system for my boys and I absolutely love it.  There is just something about the physical structure of the workboxes that keep my boys working steadily and successfully through their independent work.  My daughter does quite well with a daily independent assignment list.  I've posted about our workboxes in the past so I'll direct you to that detailed post.

• Advantages to the Workbox System

While our schedule needs some serious tweaking, I have been experimenting with using a schedule to structure our days a bit more as well.  Again, I definitely have to tweak our schedule but I do like the structure it adds to our days, when we were following the schedule.  Given that some serious tweaking is in order, we have not been following the schedule the past few weeks. 

• School Schedule for the 2010-2011 School Year

Organizing End-of-the-Year Portfolios for Assessment
Another big organizing task for me falls towards the end of our school year - organizing my children's portfolios for assessment by a certified teacher.  I wrote a very detailed article about how I go about organizing a sampling of their schoolwork and accomplishments for their portfolio reviews at The Homeschool Classroom. 

• Homeschool Portfolios

In addition to all of the above, I make "teacher-prep" time a daily part of my evenings.  I try extremely hard to make sure that all work is graded, the workboxes are ready to go, and my daughter's assignment sheet is completed before I go to bed at night.  Now, that doesn't always happen and I've had many mornings where I'm scrambling to get everything ready - I have found that our days go much smoother when everything is prepped the night before.

While the planning and organization involved in homeschooling never ends, the rewards of smooth days and less stress for me is well-worth the time and effort I put into planning and organizational activities.